Name of Strategy: DEFENDS

Name of strategy: DEFENDS

Purpose/objective:

The acronym is a strategic approach that helps secondary students write a composition in which they must take a position and defend it (Ellis, 1994).

Reference:

“Intervention for Students with Learning Disabilities”

Strategy steps:

Students use the following acronym as a guide to help write a composition in which they take a position and defend it. Each letter stands for a different step of the strategy:

Decide on audience, goals, and position

Estimate main ideas and details

Figure best order of main ideas and details

Express the position in the opening

Note each main idea and supporting points

Drive home the message in the last sentence

Search for errors and correct

Special teaching considerations:

It would be helpful for the teacher to display a poster of the DEFENDS acronym in the classroom for students to refer to as they write.

Possible applications:

This acronym can be used not only in writing a composition in which the student takes a position and defends it, but also can be used to prepare a persuasive speech in which the student can present his/her argument with supporting points.

Procedures for ensuring maintenance and transfer:

After a student has completed writing his/her composition, the teacher might ask the student to reread his/her composition and identify each part of the DEFENDS acronym within his/her writing. This will allows the teacher, as well as the student, to check that all components of the DEFENDS acronym were used in writing the composition.

Name of Strategy: Word Identification Strategy

Purpose/objective:

This strategy allows students to follow a set of steps in identifying an unknown word.

Reference:

“Strategy Instruction for Problem-solving Unknown Words”

Strategy steps:

Discover the context
Isolate the prefix
Separate the suffix
Say the stem
Examine the stem using the “Rules of 3 s and 2 s”

3 s Rule: If the first letter in the stem begins with a consonant, underline three letters.
2 s Rule: If the first letter in the stem begins with a vowel, underline two letters. (Repeat for each subsequent set of letters in the stem until all letters have been underlined and thus grouped into syllables.)

Problem-solving rules: If you can’t decode the word using the Rules of 3 s and 2 s, drop the first letter of the stem and then apply the rules.

Check with someone.
Try the dictionary.

Special teaching considerations:

This strategy would best be used when student read text that is slightly above their reading level. Students can use this strategy to problem-solve unfamiliar words within the text.
It may be helpful for the teacher to provide students with a “Word Identification Strategy” card that they can refer to when they come across an unfamiliar word while reading.

Possible applications:

This strategy can also be used to decipher the meaning of certain words. By picking apart the prefix and suffix of the word, the student might be able to figure out the meaning of the word.

Procedures for ensuring maintenance and transfer:

Once the student has mastered the steps of the word identification strategy, I would have the student read aloud to me text that is slightly above his/her reading level. The student should be able to use the word identification strategy without referring a printed version of the steps.

Name of Strategy: Strategy Cards to Enhance Cooperative Learning

Purpose/objective:

These cards are used to assist students to appropriately seek clarification on the expectations of the assignment and to focus on the group activity.

Reference:

“Using Strategy Cards to Enhance Cooperative Learning for Students with Learning Disabilities”

Strategy steps:

Students are given a strategy card which states the following below, which is used to self-monitor their attention and participation in cooperative learning activities:

STRATEGY CARD

When I am in a group activity, I work with group members to discuss information, solve a problem, or work on a project. I am a valuable member of the group.

1. Before beginning, I ask myself:
Do I understand the directions and goal of the group activity?

2. If I do not understand the directions or goal of the activity, I ask the group members. If they do not know, I ask the teacher to explain the directions or goal again.

3. Every few minutes, I ask myself:
Am I listening to the group members?
Am I helping in some way to complete the group’s activity?

4. At the end of the activity, I complete the sentence:
I learned that ...

Special teaching considerations:

Special education teachers must explain this card to their students so that they understand the purpose and effectiveness of them.
It is best to introduce the strategy card to students with disabilities in a resource room setting first before introducing the strategy card to the entire class. This allows you to make sure the student with disabilities fully understands how the card works.

Possible applications:

By using the strategy card to have students self-monitor themselves during cooperative learning activities, you are making the students aware that they are responsible for their actions and their behavior. Expectations of how they are to behave and work cooperatively are spelled out on the strategy cards.

Procedures for ensuring maintenance and transfer:

Having students working on a cooperative learning activity in which they work in groups while using their strategy cards during this time would allow me to see how the use of the strategy card affects their behavior.

Name of Strategy: “M.U.R.D.E.R.”

Purpose/objective:

To help students successfully study and retain information.

Reference:

Strategy steps:

Mood:

Set a positive mood for yourself to study in.

Select the appropriate time, environment, and attitude.

Understand:

Mark any information you don’t understand in a particular unit;

Keep a focus on one unit or a manageable group of exercises

Recall:

After studying the unit, stop and put what you have learned into your own words

Digest:

Go back to what you did not understand and reconsider the information;

Contact external expert sources (e.g., other books or an instructor) if you still cannot understand it

Expand:

In this step, ask three kinds of questions concerning the studied material:

If I could speak to the author, what questions would I ask or what criticism would I offer?
How could I apply this material to what I am interested in?
How could I make this information interesting and understandable to other students?

Review:

Go over the material you’ve covered,

Review what strategies helped you understand and/or retain information in the past and apply these to your current studies.

Special teaching considerations:

Information to be studied should be chosen by the teacher before using this strategy.

Possible applications:

This study strategy can be used almost any student to help improve their study habits and retain information.

Procedures for ensuring maintenance and transfer:

The teacher can gauge the effectiveness of this study strategy by testing the student’s knowledge of the information after he/she has used the study strategy.

Name of Strategy: Order of Operations/P.E.M.D.A.S.

Purpose/objective:

To help students remember their order of operations when evaluating an algebraic expression.

Reference:

“Evaluating Algebraic Expressions-Order of Operations/P.E.M.D.A.S.”

Strategy Steps:

The following acronym helps students to remember their order of operations:

P.E.M.D.A.S.

(Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally)

Perform the operations inside the parenthesis first
then exponents
then all the multiplication and division from left to right
then all the addition and subtraction from left to right

Example:

3 * ( 5 + 8 ) - 2^2 * 4 + 3

Parenthesis first: 5 + 8 = 13

3 * 13 – 2^2 * 4 + 3

Exponent next: square the 2 or 2^2 = 4

3 * 13 – 4 * 4 + 3

Multiplication and division next:

39 – 16 + 3

Addition and subtraction next:

39 – 16 + 3 = 26

Special teaching considerations:

Students should know and understand all the different operations before introducing the acronym P.E.M.D.A.S. to them.

Possible application:

The P.E.M.D.A.S. acronym can be used by students after their work is done to check their thought processes of how they solved the algebraic equation.

Procedures for ensuring maintenance and transfer:

Students should be able to successfully solve algebraic expressions using P.E.M.D.A.S. to help them remember their order of operations.

Name of strategy: The SQ3R Reading Method

Purpose/objective:

To help students better understand and retain the content they are reading in preparation for future assessment.

Reference:

“The SQ3R Reading Method”

Strategy steps:

The SQ3R Reading Method stands for “Survey! Question! Read! Recite! Review!”

Before you read, Survey the chapter:
the title, headings, and subheadings
captions under pictures, charts, graphs or maps
review questions or teacher-made study guides
introductory and concluding paragraphs
summary

Question while you are surveying:

Turn the title, heading, and/or subheadings into questions;
Read questions at the end of the chapters or after each subheading;
Ask yourself, “What did my instructor say about this chapter or subject when it was assigned?”
Ask yourself, “What do I already know about this subject?”

3.When you begin to Read:

Look for answers to the questions you first raised;
Answer questions at the beginning or end of chapters or study guides
Reread captions under pictures, graphs, etc.
Note all the underlined, italicized, bold printed words or phrases
Study graphic aids
Reduce your speed for difficult passages
Stop and reread parts which are not clear
Read only a section at a time and recite after each section

4.Recite after you’ve read a section:

Orally ask yourself questions about what you have just read and/or summarize, in your own words, what you read
Take notes from the text but write the information in your own words
Underline/highlight important points you’ve just read
Use the method of recitation which best suits your particular learning style but remember, the more senses you use the more likely you are to remember what you read –i.e., TRIPLE STRENGHT LEARNING: Seeing, saying, hearing; QUADRUPLE STRENTH LEARNING: Seeing, saying, hearing writing!!!

5.Review: an ongoing process

Day One

After you have read and recited the entire chapter, write questions for those points you have highlighted/underlined in the margins. If your method of recitation included note-taking in the left hand margins of your notebook, write questions for the notes you have taken.

Day Two

Page through the text and/or your notebook to re-acquaint yourself with the important points. Cover the right hand column of your text/notebook and orally ask yourself the questions in the left hand margins. Orally recite or write the answers from memory. Make “flash cards” for those questions which give you difficulty. Develop mnemonic devices for material which need to be memorized.

Day Three, Four, and Five

Alternate between your flash cards and notes and test yourself (orally or in writing) on the questions you formulated. Make additional flash cards if necessary.

Weekend

Using the text and notebook, make a Table of Contents – list all the topics and sub-topics you need to know from the chapter. From the Table of Contents, make a Study Sheet/Spatial Map. Recite the information orally and in your own words as you put the Study Sheet/Map together.

Now that you have consolidated all the information you need for that chapter, periodically review the Sheet/Map so that at test time you will not have to cram.

Special teaching considerations:

Teachers should go over the SQ3R Reading Method in class so that the students fully understand how it works and will benefit from it fully when studying.

Possible applications:

Students will be able to use the SQ3R Reading Method to study any subject area and reading of any content.

Procedures for ensuring maintenance and transfer:

The teacher would be able to know that the SQ3R Reading Method is beneficial to students by how well they do on future assessments of the content studied.

Name of strategy: “Trace, Copy, and Recall”

Purpose/objective:

To help students practice and remember new spelling words

Reference:

“Five Guidelines for Learning to Spell| and Six Ways to Practice Spelling”

Strategy steps:

Make a chart with 3 or 4 spelling words that you want to learn.

Fold over the “recall” part so that only the first two columns show.

Say the word to yourself.
Trace it in the first column, saying the letters as you trace,and say the word again. You might put a little rhythm into it. ( "WORD . W - pause - O - pause R-D - WORD!).
Go to the second column, say the word, and write it the same way.
Then, while the rhythm and the sound and the feeling are fresh in your mind, flip the paper over and say the word and spell it out -- the same way, saying each letter (because, after all, practice makes permanent).
If it's a hard word, put it on the list more than once. If you're feeling particularly smart, trace and copy TWO words, and try to remember them both before you flip the page over. However, if your short-term memory isn't big enough to hold all that, do one at a time because you want to practice the words RIGHT, not make guesses!
After you've done all the words this way a few times, start doing them two or three at a time, and when you feel like you know them, do the list again -- but skip the tracing, or, when you're feeling VERY confident, skip the tracing and the copying both.

Special teaching considerations:

Teacher must model the trace, copy, and recall strategy with his/her students before allowing them to practice it themselves. Teacher should provide students with paper to make columns with.

Possible applications:

This strategy can also be helpful in remembering definitions or key words, not just for spelling.

Procedures for ensuring maintenance and transfer:

Once students have used the trace, copy, and recall strategy, students should show improvement in spelling through either oral or formal assessment.

Name of strategy: K-W-L Strategy

Purpose/objective:

This is a simple strategy that helps students increase their knowledge.

Reference:

“Thinking with Language, Images, and Strategies”

Strategy Steps:

Write three columns across the top of a piece of paper. (K-What I Know, W-What I Want to Learn, L-What I Learned: See diagram below)
Have students brainstorm what they already know about the topic and write this under the K column.
Have students write questions that they want to learn about the topic in the W column.
Have students work in small groups to discuss, research, and read about the topic.
In small groups, students will fill out the L column with things that they learned from the discussion, research, and reading about the topic.

K
What I Know / W
What I Want to Learn / L
What I Learned
Have students brainstorm and list any information that they already know about the topic. / Have students develop questions about what they want to learn about the topic. / Have students record what they have learned from reading and library research

Special teaching considerations:

Students work in groups so that those with limited abilities can be helped with note-taking.

Possible applications:

This strategy can be used in introducing any new topic to a class and works well with almost any grade level, whether elementary or secondary school.

Procedures for ensuring maintenance and transfer:

Students display their thought process in the KWL chart that they made. The teacher can gauge how much the students have learned from the L column that is completed after the students discuss and research the topic.

Name of strategy: “Wheels for Literature”

Purpose/objective:

To create an advance organizer that will support memory, attention, and processing when reading short stories, novels, essays, plays, and long poems.

Reference:

“Wheels for Literature”

Strategy steps:

Students are the write the title and author of the piece of literature on the top of the paper.
The center of the wheels should be identified as the following depending on what kind of literature is being read.
Short story- Characters, setting, plot, theme
Book- Chapters
Poem- Stanzas, theme
Play- Acts, scenes, theme
Novel- Chapters
Students then draw spokes from the center of the wheel at the end of which they place the appropriate information from the literature.
If the space on the wheel is not sufficient, students may opt to use a grid for more space.

** see examples on the following pages **